


An unexpected encounter

by PrettyPinkCupcake



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Rigel Black Chronicles - murkybluematter
Genre: Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Gen, Gift Fic, Harry is freaking out, Inspired by The Rigel Black Chronicles, Riddle meeting Harry as herself, Riddle recognises Harry has secrets, murkybluematter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27547903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrettyPinkCupcake/pseuds/PrettyPinkCupcake
Summary: Lord Riddle was the last person Harry Potter wanted to see.  She wasn't fond of dealing with him as Rigel, and she definitely didn't want to deal with him as Harriet.  But after an annoying polyjuice fail at Gringotts, her day only gets worse when she meets Riddle whilst she's browsing her favourite second hand bookstore.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 113
Collections: Rigel Black Chronicles Appreciation, Rigel Black Exchange Round 2





	An unexpected encounter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosysea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosysea/gifts).



> I hope this meets your request!

The cool tranquility of the old bookstore calmed her, the scent of old books and parchment soothing her. The Potter and Black libraries had always been her sanctuary. Somewhere she could relax and immerse herself in knowledge and ideas. 

After the drama she’d been through at Gringotts this morning, Harry needed calming. Fetching old family volumes from the Potter and Black vaults at Gringotts shouldn’t have required lengthy explanations to the goblins about why her appearance was her choice and if she chose to look different it was no one’s business but hers.

Thankfully Heir Arcturus Rigel Black was there to support and bolster her story. She hadn’t had many dealings with Gringotts or the goblins, but Archie had, and he wasn’t afraid to use the power of the Black family to help. 

And of course the blood test to prove that she was actually Heiress Harriet Potter, regardless of how she looked, couldn’t be gainsaid. Not that she was happy being forced to spill her blood to prove her identity; she was very wary of her blood, willingly given, being somehow used against her.

If only she and Archie had been aware of the Thief’s Downfall when they’d decided to get their parents’ permission to check the family vaults for old spell books that would hopefully have some information that could help them overcome the Fade. 

But Harry, for all her research into polyjuice, knew little about the Thief’s Downfall beyond a vague rumour that the goblins had a potion that could counteract polyjuice. And frankly, she’d be much happier had she not experienced it for herself. 

(Although she was now itching to find the recipe and brew it herself. It would give her so much more flexibility with the ruse. She wondered if Professor Snape knew the recipe, or if it was proprietary to the goblins).

And now she had to wait till she was home before she could retake her modified polyjuice. Luckily her increasing paranoia meant she’d taken to brewing it regularly so that she always had a fresh batch. It was a shame it didn’t have the shelf life of regular polyjuice, but using her preservation oil potion did extend its lifespan.

With increased scrutiny from Riddle, not to mention the tournament, and no current access to a time turner, (not that she ever wanted to be anywhere near time turners ever, ever again), she couldn’t afford a repeat of the Great Polyjuice Fail of third year. 

What a nuisance that in her planning she’d neglected to ensure that she also had a blended hair ready to go. That was something she’d fix when she got home. 

She felt naked in the bookstore without her polyjuiced appearance. She’d used a glamour at Gringotts to restore her Harry appearance, but it wasn’t the same. 

At least she still had a pair of her old prescription glasses buried at the bottom of her potions kit. The plain glasses she normally wore as Harry didn’t do anything for her sadly worsening myopia. 

The tinkling of the bell on the bookstore’s door brought her out of her reverie, reminding her where she was. She looked up, only to see the very last person she ever wanted to see enter the store. 

Riddle. 

Elegantly garbed in expensive robes, wearing the weight of his magical power like a mantle.

Fuck. 

Just because Harry’s next stop was lunch with Caelum Lestrange didn’t mean she should be channeling Caelum’s profanity. But still. The circumstances demanded it.

Fuck. 

She swiftly turned away from the door and let go of her glamour. She wasn’t sure if Riddle could see through glamours, but she wasn’t about to risk it. There was nothing illegal about wearing a glamour, or using polyjuice to change her appearance, as she’d managed to convince the goblins, but it was suspicious, and she didn’t want Riddle associating suspicious with Harry Potter.

She’d switched her aura over to its “Harry setting” when she arrived home for the Easter break, so at least Rigel’s lack of aura wouldn’t give her away. Dom’s swallowing of Riddle’s injected magic seemed to have dimmed the resonance so that Riddle could no longer sense her. At least she hoped that was what the scowl on his face, when he congratulated Rigel with a hearty handshake after the fifth task, meant. 

With any luck he wouldn’t even notice her. The information she’d come to the second hand bookstore to search for was extremely obscure. What were the chances Riddle would also be interested in research into magical cores, core transference and the fade?

Even then, what would be the chance of him recognising her? She didn’t really recognise herself, and not just because of her unfamiliar, albeit real, face. 

Unusually for Harry, and only because of the aforementioned lunch with Caelum, she was wearing dress robes rather than her usual brewing robes and her favourite brewing boots. (She’d had to transfigure her robes to adjust them to her new form after at Gringotts). 

Harry should have known better than to tempt the gods of fate. Or irony. Or perhaps it was Leo’s favourite trickster god, Kyprioth, who had it in for her. 

At any rate, today was certainly not Harry’s lucky day. And that was discounting the fact that she still had Dumbledore‘s soirée to attend in the evening. 

Fuck. After greeting the store owner Riddle was now making his way over to her section of the store. Maybe the books he was interested in were on the bookshelf down the aisle, past her. 

But no. Of course not. He stopped right in front of the shelves she was perusing. He peered at her, evidently surprised to find anyone else interested in the same esoteric and obscure topic he was researching. 

“Heiress Potter?” he asked politely, his voice indicating surprise at seeing her. 

Harry fought down the panic rising within her. She had enough trouble with Riddle’s interest in Rigel. She didn’t need Riddle interested in Harriet Potter. 

She frantically wracked her memory. Had she ever interacted with him as  _ Harry _ before? 

No. Not directly. And certainly not one-on-one. Harry had been part of a large circle of people at the Parkinson’s new year gala when her mother had calmly put forward an opposing point of view and that Riddle politely contested, but Harry had been listening to the conversation, not participating. She’d heard him comment in parseltongue, watched Riddle watching as Archie was oblivious to Riddle’s parseltongue, and she’d seen him across the room, but Harriet Potter had never directly interacted with him.

She felt the warning from Dom that Riddle was reading her aura, but thankfully he didn’t follow up with Legilimency. She was certain that Dom could protect her mind from anyone, even Riddle, but explaining the defences on her mind, or why she was apparently so good at Occlumency, was another place she didn’t want to go. 

Using Occlumency to hide her frenzied thoughts, she replied politely. “Lord Riddle. What a surprise.” 

“I could say the same, Miss Potter.” He looked at her with interest. “Aren’t you supposed to be at school in America?” 

Of course she was. And she knew Riddle knew of her correspondence course. He’d tried to use that knowledge as part of the against her that threat he’d made to Rigel. This encounter could really help the ruse… Or really harm it if she said the wrong thing.

“I’m home for the Easter break, sir,” she replied, outwardly calm, inwardly keeping her anxiety tamped down. 

“Ah, Dumbledore’s soiree.” His lip curled in distaste. “I didn’t think the old man invited students.”

Was he angling to find out if Rigel had been invited?

“This is the first time I’ve been invited, sir. So I wouldn’t know who else normally attends.” Calm, polite, demure. She could do it.

“I imagine the rest of your family’s also going,” he suggested. 

“Yes,” she said ingenuously. “Mum wasn’t able to find a sitter for Addy, so she’s coming too. I’ll have to help with her though. Not that I mind,” she babbled artlessly. “It’s nice spending time with my sister.”

Riddle was silent. Harry hoped that he’d give up interest in her and move on to whatever it was that he was he for. But no, instead he was peering interestedly at the book she was holding.

“ _ Murgatroyd’s Treatise of 1813 on the Theory of Developing Magical Cores _ . A weighty subject for a school girl,” Riddle derided.

“I’m studying to be a healer,” she replied, ignoring the attempted affront to her intellect. She would not rise to his bait. “I’m interested in a lot of different topics, and I find the development of magical cores fascinating.” 

“Ahh. An … academic, like your … cousin.”

She suddenly remembered that Riddle claimed to be able to always tell when someone was lying. She’d have to be very careful.

“Yes. Both Rigel and I enjoy spending time in self study.” 

“And is Rigel spending time in self study this Easter break?”

Riddle  _ was _ angling to see if Rigel was attending Dumbledore’s soiree. She didn’t really want to let on that Rigel was; Rigel’s attendance and his request that she also attend was the reason she was able to be in the bookstore today.

“I imagine so,” she responded. “Rigel often spends time outside of school following up on many and varied interests. As do I.”

“And would you know what Rigel’s interests are?”

“There are many areas where our interests overlap, but we often follow different paths. I was an intern at the Potions Guild; my cousin interned in as a healer in a remote wizarding community in South America. But we are both interested in finding a solution to the Fade.”

“A potions based solution?” he sneered. “Potions have been tried before. They have not worked.” 

“Perhaps,” she said mildly. “But Rigel has unique abilities that have not fully been explored,” Harry was torn between not wanting to remind Riddle of Rigel’s core hopping ability and wanting to make it clear that there were alternatives to the Fade that didn’t a marriage law that stripped halfbloods of their rights to marry who they chose, “and my shaped imbuing technique has not yet been used to counteract the Fade”. 

Truthfully, it was something she had not considered until now; she’d been focused on her healing first aid kit, but this was something that she would definitely follow up on. 

“The idealism and folly of youth,” Riddle said disparagingly. 

At least my folly didn’t create a mad magical construct that’s terrorising the wizarding world, she wanted to say. Instead she merely nodded, occluding harder. 

“You are a lot like your cousin, Miss Potter,” Riddle said. He picked up one of the books she had stacked on the floor next to her and looked at it. “Intriguing. Many and varied interests indeed.” 

The sooner this was over, the safer she was. She needed to get out of here.

“If you would excuse me, Lord Riddle,” she said politely, inwardly grimacing at the need to give him the unwarranted honorific, and be polite. “But I have other appointments to keep.”

Without thinking, she wordlessly and wandlessly levitated the books to the front counter, plucking the book Riddle was holding from his hands as she did.

“ _ Hardly a no talent sslut _ ,” he hissed in Parseltongue to himself, unknown to him intelligible also to Harry. “ _ You can keep your little ssecretss, Misss Potter _ . _ For now.”  _

Harry was glad that her back was to him; that he couldn’t see her face, or he’d see her shock at hearing her angry words repeated in a language she was not supposed to understand; and her worry at what Riddle thought her secrets might be.

She quickly paid for her books, left the bookstore, and went to find a public restroom to redon her glamour. She felt naked without the polyjuice, doubly naked without even her glamour, and she needed time and privacy to calm herself before her lunch with Lestrange.


End file.
